Understand
by Rayet
Summary: Kakashi simply assumes Sakura doesn't understand loss. Is he right?


"Ouch!" Naruto cried as a kunai bit through the back of his wrist. Grabbing a handful of his own, he hurled them at the black and white eagle wheeling above him. Not all made their mark, but enough did to cause the creature to burst apart. Ink rained down as its rider leapt to safety. Naruto yelped as the black liquid fell onto his face and stained his skin. Wiping the worst from his eyes, his opponent took advantage of the situation to knock him to the ground and pin him in the puddle of ink.

"I win," Sai stated calmly, standing up.

Naruto pulled himself out of the black pool and spat a mouthful in Sai's direction. "Why is it always ink with you? I'm gonna be covered in this stuff for a week, and we're going out for dinner tomorrow night!" He tried vainly to brush it from his jacket.

"We're only going out if I get a good review," Sakura reminded him from the sidelines where she and Kakashi had been watching the two spar. "The medical examiner hates me because she thinks Tsunade-sama spoils me. She'll probably fail me on some technicality just because she can." Her tone was half-joking but her three teammates could tell there was real nervousness behind it. Naruto gave her an inky pat on the shoulder as she healed his cut hand. He was about to say something reassuring before Sai cut in.

"Well you are a bit spoiled by the fact that you are the Hokage's apprentice. Most medic-nin your age can't even apply for ANBU medical detachments, especially when you're not even in ANBU."

Naruto's hand whipped out from Sakura's healing grasp before she could reply. He turned to his teammate angrily. "Shut up, Sai! Granny Tsunade doesn't spoil Sakura. She's going to this review because she's got useful skills. Unlike you, ink boy." Naruto and Sai were facing each other now, on the verge of beginning their spar all over again. Kakashi sighed. They reminded him of two kids he once knew, who had only started getting along just before one of them died. He had been thinking about that team a lot recently, ever since Sakura had decided to apply for the more dangerous medical missions.

"Hey, cut it out you guys." Sakura had stepped between the two, playing the anxious peacemaker.

_Just like Rin, _Kakashi thought to himself, with a pang of sadness. She was the reason he had been remembering. ANBU-type medical missions held almost as much risk as normal ones, and you didn't have the support of your original team. Sakura wouldn't have the rest of Team Kakashi watching her back when she went on medical detail. If she got into trouble, her life would be in the hands of whatever ANBU were still alive on the mission, as well as the other medics that had been called out there. Just like Rin's life had been. Medical teams were only sent on missions that had already gone wrong.

Called back from his reminiscing by a light hand on his arm, Kakashi looked up at the person who could well be the next one to leave him. The boys were just disappearing out of the corner of his eye, but she had stayed behind.

"Kakashi san, could I ask you a favour?" Sakura asked shyly. She paused for an answer, then ploughed on when he stayed silent.

"You might have guessed I'm a little nervous about tomorrow," she blushed at the admission, "and I was wondering if you could help me. Tomorrow morning… do you mind if we train together?" the pink-haired girl bit her lip as she waited for her old sensei's answer. Her face fell as his expression grew pained.

"Couldn't Naruto or Sai…?" Kakashi asked, clearly uncomfortable.

"Naruto's leaving for an overnight mission this evening, and Sai... wouldn't understand," she explained, her eyes pleading. _I need __you._

Kakashi would regret looking into those green orbs. As soon as he did, he knew he couldn't say 'no'. He wanted to; he wanted to say she should find someone else to do it. He didn't want to help her for this review. Naruto and Sasuke were children of prophecy, and Sai was ex-ANBU already. Kakashi had never felt the need to protect them as much as he did the kunoichi standing before him now; the one that was unwittingly treading the same path as Rin. But he knew that was unfair to her. He knew that what she needed from him was not protection, but help. She needed him to train with her; and so he had to say yes.

"Really?" Sakura asked, uncertain. He had seemed so hesitant before. "You promise?"

Kakashi winced- another promise to a teammate. But again, all he could do was say yes.

It would be ridiculous to say the copy-nin couldn't sleep that night. He was a shinobi, trained to sleep on cue if need be. But for a while, he chose not to sleep. Instead he sat and stared at the only two photographs in his entire apartment. One was of Team Four, the other of Team Seven. He had gone from student to teacher, while his comrades had all died long ago. Now he was to lead; and he couldn't help feeling he was leading his new comrades to the same fate. The guilt was irrational, but it wasn't new.

_She made me promise. It was like she was doing it on purpose, just to remind me of all the ones I've broken…_

Kakashi woke with the sun as usual, but instead of meeting Sakura at the bridge straightaway, he went to visit old friends. This was also the norm. Every inch of the stone monument was as familiar as the back of Kakashi's hand. He could reach out and touch the names of his fellows with his eyes closed. But he forced them to stay open, forced them to acknowledge the loss. Obito, Rin, Minato. Because he lived, he felt responsible. And so he stayed with them. He stood and he watched and he bore witness to them. The sun crept higher and higher, and when it was well overhead, he finally turned and left.

Sakura was waiting at the bridge when he finally got there, far too late. Her clothes were sweat-stained and bloody, and her eyes were so full of pain and anger that they made her face almost unrecognisable. This wasn't just Sakura's temper; this was far more acute.

"You promised," she spat at him as he drew closer.

"Sakura-" Kakashi began, but was cut off.

"What was it this time? Black cat crossed your path so you had to go the long way round? Helping an old lady with her bag? Oh, I know; you just got lost on the road of life, didn't you?" the tears were sparkling in her eyes but she refused to let them spill over.

"I take it the review didn't go well," Kakashi said, realising at once that it was a mistake to do so.

Sakura winced as though he had thrown cold water in her face. "I failed the review. But this isn't even about that; I _needed _you. I needed you to train with me, to make me feel like I was on equal grounds. But you broke your promise." A single tear slid down her cheek and suddenly she was yelling at him. "Where were you?"

"At the memorial," Kakashi said simply. He knew she knew that was where he was, and thought that there was no way she could fight him about it.

He was wrong. "_That _is what was more important to you? I needed your help with one of the biggest things of my career, and you never came because you were visiting the _dead? _That could have waited, Kakashi."

It was his turn to be shocked. "What the hell would you know?" He asked, not shouting but not needing to either. "You've never lost anyone in your whole, short, sheltered life!"

"You're not honouring the dead by ignoring the living! Do what they can't, and _live_ your _bloody_ _life_!"

"You have no idea why I go to that memorial; what it feels like! So don't think you can tell me what the dead want me to do. You don't know a single thing about it." They were both breathing heavily as though they had been running, their eyes boring holes into each other. Finally Sakura looked down, and laughed mirthlessly.

"Ninjas who abandon their missions are called trash, but those who abandon their comrades are worse than trash," she said quietly, before turning and walking away.

Kakashi may have been feeling bad before, but it was nothing compared to the turmoil now. The guilt had intensified; what was his fault? He couldn't find the answer in the village, so he went to the Hokage for a mission. He couldn't find the answer on the mission, so when he returned he went straight home. He couldn't find the answer at home, or in his Icha Icha books, or anywhere it seemed. Every time he closed his eyes he remembered the way he had lost his cool with Sakura. She was too naïve to understand loss; she had not experienced it. But that wasn't her fault. He shouldn't have used that against her like grief was some mark of experience. But maybe the answer lay at the heart of his grief. Sakura said he was wrong for going to the memorial so much, but she was wrong for talking about what she didn't know. Maybe the answer was there.

The answer may not have been there, but someone else was. She knelt in front of the cold stone, her rosy hair whipped by the breeze. Kakashi walked to stand beside her, looking down at her face. She was smiling serenely, eyes closed. But slowly she opened them, staring back up at him. Without looking away from him, she slowly raised her finger to point it at one of the names scratched into the face of the rock.

"That there, is Kimiko Tanaka. She was a medic nin too, and we'd sometimes have lunch together." She pointed to another. "That's Renji Aome; I saved his life once on a mission. I wasn't there when he _was_ killed. I was for that one, though: Yuki Sata. Slash to the stomach. Nothing I could do for her except dull the pain and wait." She pointed to yet another name, further back. "Emiko Yamanaka; Ino's grandmother, but I called her Gran too." Another name. "Andou Haruno. My uncle, and the only Haruno I've seen with the same hair as me." She continued to point out names, tracing the characters with a single finger as Kakashi watched in silence. "That boy was killed on his first Jounin mission. He used to come to the hospital for every little injury he got out training. I thought he was just being annoying; it was only after he died that somebody told me he liked me. Those three were in my class. Killed when Orochimaru attacked the village." Her finger slid down past the names to a patch of empty rock.

"And that," she said, her voice still calm, but heavy with sadness, "Is where one day I will fight to allow Sasuke's name to be put. And that," she added as her fingertip slid down a single space, "is where I will fight to prevent Naruto's name from going." She kept her finger there, but turned her head to look at her living friend once more. Kakashi stared back, wanting to speak but not knowing what to say.

Suddenly Sakura laughed; a short, sharp bark that broke the heavy silence. She moved her hand from the rock and used it to help her stand.

"I remember them all, Kakashi. Every single name; every single face. I am a ninja, and I understand loss, young as I am. But I refuse to lose a part of myself in the process." She shook her head slightly, as if to clear it.

"And hopefully, way back here," she continued, walking around to the other side of the stone, "my name will go someday. But I absolutely forbid you from coming here to mourn it and make yourself late for your next group of students." Her head appeared around the side with a wry smile, but he found himself unable to return it. He stood up slowly and walked to the back of the memorial with a serious expression.

"How could you think," he began, his voice strange, "that you- young, strong you- could not outlive me?"

"Kakashi, you've managed to escape death this long. The way I see it, that improves your chances."

He watched her, smiling calmly as they discussed their deaths. "I made a promise to you once," he told her.

"It's okay, Kakashi," she said as she brushed his shoulder reassuringly. "I probably would have failed that exam anyway."

"That's not the promise I meant," he told her taking hold of her hand and willing her to listen. "When I accepted Team Seven all those years ago, I made a promise to myself that I would protect you all with my life, and teach you the most important thing about being a ninja."

Sakura saw the intensity of his belief in his single visible eye, the one that had lied to her about how it would all turn out okay in the future. But there was no cheerful crinkle this time. He was the most serious she had ever seen him outside of battle.

"You taught us well, Kakashi. You taught us the most important thing about being a ninja, and though we don't always show it-" she broke off for a moment as she thought about Sasuke's betrayal, "-we do know that the best thing we have out there is each other." She squeezed his hand softly, trying to show her beloved old sensei that he had done right by them. "I understand loss. And through it I can better understand what I still have: the people that are always watching my back." Kakashi returned her gentle smile, guiding the hand he still held until her fingertips lightly brushed the back of the monument.

"If this is where you think your name will be," he told her, "then I expect my name will go just here, under yours." After a moment he released her hand and watched it swing back to her side. She gazed at the space on the monument, as though she could already see his name carved there. He thought she might disagree, or tell him again that chances were he'd never die. But then she smiled; a true, glorious grin that lit up the forest around them.

"In that case," she said, "we'll go out with one hell of a fight."


End file.
